Technology is supposed to make life easier, but when it comes to advertising, dominating a pay per click (PPC) campaign can be frustrating. Just like other strategies, there are best practices, and there are also common mistakes. One of the biggest is trying a DIY approach when you don’t have anybody to guide you with your PPC experience. It’s important to know some background of how PPC ads work and how you can use them effectively.
PPC ads are an essential part of any social media marketing strategy but creating great ads that get people to click can be tricky. Below, we’ve highlighted some of the top mistake’s marketers make when creating their PPC ads, and what you can do to avoid them.
What is PPC?
Digital marketing has a lot to do with how and what platforms your company is advertising on. They allow you to display ads that are relevant to what users are searching for. Pay Per Click deals entirely with web traffic that is paid for. The cost per click is governed by many factors, including your business domain and keyword competition, quality score, and more in a detailed subsequent section. PPC advertising is a controlled, measured and highly budgeted way of reaching your target audience. It has gained a positive reputation over the years on account of the high revenue it is capable of generating. Read below for the 4 most common mistakes.
Incorrect Keywords
Most search engines will let you notify them of which ads shouldn’t be shown. When you’re paying for broad matches, you’re going to reel in visitors who aren’t actually relevant. Most searches are “longtail,” which means they are longer queries that may contain variations of your keywords. Focus more on these broader, long-tail keywords instead of on more specific keywords. One of the PPC mistakes many companies fall for is failing to use negative keywords as a part of their strategy. Negative keywords are terms that you can use to tell Google which search terms you don’t want to show up in the results for.
Search and Segmentation
Don’t use the ‘Search & Display Select’ setting within your campaign. This groups your networks together; despite the fact you could be targeting users in two completely different scenarios. Not only that, but it also combines your metrics from each network, making it a challenge to judge how well each network is performing, and also eliminating the option to segment your Ad budget for each network. Ensure that search network and display network campaigns are separated.
Choose the Correct Metrics
One of the priciest PPC campaign management mistakes are to focus on the wrong metrics. Looking at the wrong numbers makes the campaign very different, and often inefficient. You’re losing money as you bid for wrong keywords or track wrong placements.
Look at the Bigger Picture
Often, PPC marketers are on a different team from the SEM or social media marketers. PPC marketers often find themselves running on many platforms with different campaigns. This puts a separate consciousness on the impressions and effects of their campaigns. With setups like this, it can be easy to underestimate the actual work your ad campaigns are doing. It could be easy to trash your strategy and start making a new one. However, all you might need to do is take a step back and look at the bigger picture.
